The Starset SocietyBy A’liya Spinner
From the International Space Station to a Martian Gateway
0 G Painkillers
“How did you even cut yourself? Everything here is baby proofed.”
“The printer didn’t smooth off the edge to the new cable attachment,” Lucas answered with a grunt of pain as Dr. Abarca wrapped a loose gauze around a stitched gash in the side of his hand. With his other hand he was gripping a rung in the wall to prevent himself from flinching or floating away as she’d sewn up the cut.
“Did you forget to wear the safety gloves?” Dr. Abarca raised a knowing eyebrow, drifting backward to stow the rest of the gauze in a cabinet.
“Come on, Maria, nobody actually uses those clunky things,” Lucas complained. “We’ve been out here two years and not once has there been an issue with the printer.”
“Not once?” She flipped herself upside down to get into another compartment, into which she stored the needle for later sterilization. There were no single-use medical supplies this far from Earth.
“You know what I meant,” Lucas muttered.
“Lighten up,” Dr. Abarca teased him, pulling herself back up to face him. “Your little scratch should heal up easily. Won’t even scar. And maybe this’ll be good motivation for you all to start following the safety regulations.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Lucas waved his bandaged hand. “Thanks, doc.” He pushed off from the wall and used another series of rungs to one-handedly pull himself toward the hall that connected the med-module to the rest of the station.
“Oh, and Lucas!” Dr. Abarca called after him. He paused and awkwardly spun to face her as she continued. “I’ll call up the gardener and tell him to give you some ]kale for the next few days— the painkiller kind. It’ll help with your hand hurting.”
“Not the kale, doc, that stuff tastes horrible.” Lucas dramatically gagged to convey his displeasure. “Don’t we have any real pills left?”
“That stuff expired months ago. You can have the modded kale, or I can’t help you.” Dr. Abarca shrugged and chuckled. “I’ll tell ‘em to give you some extra potato, too, to help you wash it down. Lots of antioxidants in modded potatoes, good for radiation exposure while you replace that cable piece. Make sure to wear your space suit outside.”
“Ha ha, very funny.” Lucas rolled his eyes. “I’ll be sure to eat my vegetables. No promises on the suit, though.”
It was Dr. Abarca’s turn to roll her eyes with an exasperated shake of her head. Lucas turned back and propelled himself out of the med-module. The huge microgravity gardens were far on the other side of the station. He grimaced to imagine the unpleasant taste of the kale in his near future, but Maria had been right: it was really his only option. That was what he had signed up for when he agreed to a five-year stay on the Martian orbital space station, and the fact that they had living, renewable painkillers at all was a miracle worthy of praise. And praise it he would… after he properly complained about it, first.
An Intergenerational Space Station
On November 20th, 1998, the first segment of the International Space Station (ISS) was launched into orbit. Since then, fifteen modules have been added to the original core, and the ISS now spans 109 meters across and weighs over 400 tons. For twenty-five years, the ISS has been continuously occupied by a rotation of 280 astronauts from twenty-three countries, making it a beacon of international collaboration and scientific advancement. Some of the discoveries made aboard the ISS include new water purification systems, methods to combat muscle atrophy, breakthroughs in cancer and Alzheimer research, and better global weather models for understanding climate change.
Unfortunately, the ISS (which was only intended for fifteen years of use) is showing its age. Radiation has degraded onboard technology, solar-arrays, and batteries, and many modules have known micro-fractures or leaks. Though still safe for the astronauts on board, space is an unforgiving environment, even for inorganic materials. Eventually, the ISS will become too worn down for continued habitation. NASA’s current plan is to operate the International Space Station until 2030; by the time it’s ready to be deorbited, it will have been in service over twice as long as initially intended when it was first launched in 1998.
An Immediate Next Step
There are already plans for a “new” International Space Station: the Lunar Gateway. The Lunar Gateway is an international project that will incorporate technology and modules provided by NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), and the Emirati space agency (MBRSC). As the result of so much collaboration (just like the ISS) the Gateway will be crewed and utilized by astronauts from all around the world. Unlike the ISS, however, the Gateway will be more “like a camping trip than a six-month hotel stay”, and it won’t be continuously crewed. At only one-eighth size of the ISS, the Gateway isn’t quite the floating habitat we might expect as a successor to a station that has housed personnel without interruption for twenty-five years. So what does the Lunar Gateway do? As its name might imply, the Gateway will be the first space station to orbit the moon instead of the Earth. Furthermore, the Gateway is intended to serve as a “jumping off” or aggregation point for longer missions. For example, NASA is currently planning to use the Gateway as the intermediate point during the new Artemis moon missions. Supplies— such as tools, EVA suits, and the moonlander— can be sent early to the Gateway, ahead of the eventual four-person crew of the Orion shuttle. Once docked, the crew will then split: two will take the lander down to the surface, and two will remain aboard the Gateway, monitoring equipment, conducting research, and keeping up with maintenance. Moon-landing crews can then return to the Gateway and the surface for multiple trips without having to undertake an expensive journey back to Earth every time, making lunar science not only easier but cheaper. But it’s not just moon missions that the Lunar Gateway will facilitate: eighteen-month manned missions to Mars are also planned to stop first at the Gateway. This will allow a crew to pause after taking off from Earth to fine-tune modules and retrieve supplies before launching again to Mars. Commercial companies have also turned their eyes to space station construction.
The “Orbital Reef”, pioneered by Blue Origin in collaboration with Sierra Space, Amazon, Boeing, and other private companies, was announced in 2021 as an eventual low Earth orbit space station for commercial uses, like tourism. According to Blue Origin, the Orbital Reef will have “distinct quarters designed for personal and business use, and large hatches [that] create a safe and inspiring environment”. Though only designed to support a crew of ten at inception, Blue Origin is confident that their station will not only allow private citizens to explore space, but facilitate more payload delivery and efficiency for NASA by adding to the ecosystem of functioning stations operating in space. Another commercial station, Starlab, is planned to launch in 2027, host a crew of four, and serve a primarily research-based focus.
Adapted for Microgravity
While there are currently no plans— private or otherwise— to create an orbital habitat on the scale of the International Space Station, we will likely see a return to that sprawling space habitation within the next few decades. Facilities like the Lunar Gateway and Orbital Reef are not intended to be constantly occupied and can only house a minimal crew; they’re “stops” on the way to longer journeys, or temporary soirees for visiting scientists and the ultra wealthy. But what about stations that are, themselves, the destination?
Space stations that support larger crew compliments will require more advanced habitation systems. Even a station orbiting Earth can not exclusively rely on frequent shipments from the surface for supplies— it’s simply not economically feasible, and leaves the station vulnerable should the resupply ship be delayed or encounter complications post-launch. Some level of autonomy, therefore, will be necessary. Space stations must be able to recycle their air and water, grow at least some of their own food, support the health of long-term inhabitants, and manufacture their own parts and tools for repair. Fortunately, many technologies already exist to facilitate these functions. The ability to cultivate plants in space is one of the most significant hurdles to long-term habitation. Thanks to research aboard the ISS, some varieties of crops, including cabbage, dwarf wheat, mustard, and kale, have been grown successfully in space. Most are raised in the Vegetable Production System (“Veggie”), which requires frequent tending from crewmembers and uses “pillows” of compacted water and soil to keep plants hydrated. More recently, the Advanced Plant Habitat (APH), an enclosed and automated box, relieved the crew of some of the daily burden of gardening, though it still relied on virtual monitoring from the Kennedy Space Center ground crew. These experiments have revealed common issues encountered by broad-scale plant growth in such a hostile environment. For example, during an experiment to grow tomatoes on the ISS, the station experienced an unexpected dip in on-board humidity during the seeds’ germination stage. Trying to give additional water to the plants proved difficult due to how liquids move and “clump” in space. Few of the plants survived, and then a second issue arose: those that sprouted were weakened, and then taken over by a fungal parasite. Though by the end of the experiment, the crew had produced twelve tomatoes (significantly less than the hundred anticipated), they were deemed unsafe to actually eat over concerns of fungal contamination. Unexpected fluctuations in the environment are inevitably going to happen on a long-term space station, and parasites carried on board from Earth will always be a threat.
If any disturbance can cause mass die-offs, farming in space simply isn’t viable. But there is still hope. Studying these failures have helped scientists identify genes associated with gravitropism (how plants identify gravity to know where to send their roots), as well as how the genes that control the generation of auxins (hormones) and cellulose of plants are affected by microgravity. This has opened the door to genetic engineering to make plants more resilient to the stresses of space. There has also been research into bioengineering crops (such as potatoes) to have “more edible parts, richer nutrient content, higher yields, and higher mineral nutrient use efficiencies” to provide more calories and vitamins to the astronauts who rely on them. Future space stations, therefore, will likely have expansive on-board gardens of a variety of bioengineered “space crops” that reduce the need for frequent supplies of food and minor nutrients like vitamins and antioxidants from Earth.
Space station inhabitants will also need to combat the bone loss and muscle atrophy that occurs in microgravity. Unlike spaceships that are extremely space limited and must invent clever ways to enable exercise, a sprawling space station will have plenty of room for workout machines such as treadmills, bikes (which also come with Virtual Reality headsets for a more stimulating activity!), and weights. NASA is also developing a drug to counteract bone degradation, which seems to occur over extended periods in microgravity regardless of exercise regime. But taking medicines in space poses its own challenges. In space, our bodies function differently; especially, blood flow and cellular interactions change speed and efficacy. Medicine, therefore, can be distributed around the body in unexpected ways. Effective (and safe) dosages of important drugs will be different than on Earth. Some pharmaceutical companies have already hosted small drug trials on the ISS, and many more will be necessary to ensure even common painkillers, hormones, and sleep medicine that we take daily will be safe to consume in space. Then comes the challenge of manufacturing pharmaceuticals aboard a space station. Drugs have a shelf life, and can deteriorate even faster in microgravity. Without frequent resupplies from Earth, where will medicine come from? Fortunately, the answer may lie in those very same extensive bioengineered gardens. Researchers at the University of California have engineered lettuce to produce a drug that protects against bone decay. They hope that this work can be applied to other space crops, which can either be eaten to provide medicinal effects or have medicines extracted and purified from them using on-board technologies.
Finally, a huge space station must be maintained, and frequently. Space is unforgiving, subjecting both organic and inorganic material to intense radiation and constant stress. The ISS receives around 7,000 pounds of spare parts every year, and has another 29,000 pounds of backup parts stored aboard. NASA acknowledges that this intense reliance on restocking from Earth is unfeasible for farther-flung adventures, and is already working on an alternative: 3D printing. Preliminary tests have proven effective. A wrench was successfully printed aboard the ISS from blueprints transmitted from Earth, as well as a functional antenna piece and an adapter to connect to a probe. American company Redwire Space (in collaboration with Braskem, a leading creator of biopolymers and resins) has designed Recycler, a small facility attached to the ISS which can “unspool” certain plastics to make new filament for a 3D printer. This reduces waste build-up and allows old unnecessary pieces to be reused, reducing the need for restocks of fuel for the printer which will become a deep-space station’s primary source of new parts. 3D printing can also make new parts more durable. NASA’s Alloy GRX-810, an oxide-dispersion strengthened alloy, can be created through the 3D printing process, which evenly distributes the nanoscale oxides that give the alloy its extreme strength. According to NASA scientists, this material can withstand immense heat, is more malleable than other alloys, and can survive significantly longer in harsh conditions. This material, therefore, reduces the overall number of necessary repairs while also being manufacturable by crews in space.
A Martian Gateway
Just as the Lunar Gateway will function as both a transition point facilitating journeys to the lunar surface and a supply stop for further journeys, we may someday see a habitable station in orbit of Mars. The “Mars Base Camp” has already been proposed by Lockheed Martin, acting as a brief pit-stop for crews and equipment on their way to the surface of Mars. The Base Camp is small, but someday a station to rival or overtake the ISS in size may orbit the red planet. Such a station could house a large crew from around the world that travels to and from the planet’s surface without needing to make an eight month return trip to Earth, as well as enable faster response to emergencies that may occur on the surface. This station is still close enough to our homeworld to receive the occasional resupply and crew changeover, but would have to be largely self-sufficient, growing their food and medicine and manufacturing their own spare parts. Furthermore, a Martian Gateway could be just that: a gateway. A large orbital station around Mars could facilitate even farther-reaching human exploration, and act as another step to our gradual expansion into and understanding of our solar system.
